JFK 50 years later: Postscript to a grieving nation

Wednesday

Nov 13, 2013 at 10:53 AMNov 13, 2013 at 10:53 AM

By Chris Bergeron

FRAMINGHAM, Mass. - In 1952 Mary Murphy escorted charismatic politician John F. Kennedy, his mother and sisters to a “white glove’’ tea in Framingham’s Memorial Building as the war hero-turned-candidate campaigned for a Senate seat in Congress.

“Oh, there was an aura about him,’’ recalled Murphy, wearing a PT-109 pendant on her blouse in the living room of her Framingham home. “How interesting a man he was. So witty, so very smart.’’

A dozen years later Murphy helped the president’s widow, Jacqueline Kennedy, thank a million strangers for their sympathy after her husband’s assassination.

The young English teacher at Framingham State College had been asked by Trinity College co-alumnae Polly Fitzgerald to organize volunteers to send personal responses in Jacqueline Kennedy’s name to countless people who’d sent letters of condolence from around the world.

Raised in Boston, Murphy – then, Mary Casey - became intertwined in Kennedy’s life and death through the twin institutions of education and Irish politics.

She studied English at Trinity College in Washington, D.C., where she met Fitzgerald, a graduate who had married a cousin of Kennedy who had won a seat in the Massachusetts House of Representatives before moving up to Congress.

When Kennedy campaigned in Massachusetts, the recently married Murphy was asked to organize tea parties for him to meet voters, though she’d only lived in town for six weeks.

As Kennedy progressed through Congress to the White House in 1960, Murphy remained both fascinated and charmed by “the consummate Irish politician’’ who had inspired the nation struggling with racial divisions while locked in an ominous Cold War with the Soviet Union.

On Friday, Nov. 22, 1963, Murphy was getting her hair done when she heard the president had been murdered.

Just months later, her life once again intersected with the Kennedys when Fitzgerald tendered a request from the president’s widow.

“Jacqueline wanted people who’d cared about her husband to help answer the letters she’d received,’’ Murphy recalled. “She wanted them to be as personal as possible and not pro forma.’’

Using skills she’d honed in the vanguard of women organizing Democratic political campaigns, Murphy brought together about 100 women, including FSC students and others from the Framingham Catholic Women’s Club and St. Bridget’s Church.

Eight cartons of letters soon arrived, supposedly from “everyday’’ Americans. She was told letters from “famous’’ people, cranks and overseas had been sent to other groups, often at Catholic women’s colleges.

Throughout two five-day weeks in the FSC cafeteria, Murphy made sure volunteers, each equipped with a black pen, followed strict etiquette protocols answering thousands of letters.

“Volunteers first read the letters to know whether to address them to Mrs., Miss, Dr. or whatever the appropriate title might be,’’ she recalled. “There were no ‘Ms’ in those days. Letters from famous people, haters – and there were a few – and overseas were separated and handled by different groups.’’

But not always. Murphy opened and passed on a letter from the wife of astronaut Alan Shepard who recalled a White House meeting with the First Lady.

After addressing envelopes in black ink, volunteers inserted black-bordered cards bearing the Kennedy family crest that read: “Mrs. Kennedy is deeply appreciative of your sympathy and grateful for your thoughtfulness.’’

They then put in a photo of the president and a second card that bore several paragraphs from Kennedy’s inaugural speech, concluding, “Let us go forth to lead the land we love, … knowing that here on earth God’s work must truly be our own.”

About 15,000 of the original letters have been stored in the presidential archives at the John F. Kennedy Presidential Library and Museum in Boston, but the others were destroyed for lack of storage space.

In mid-April 1964, Jacqueline Kennedy wrote Murphy thanking her “for the time and effort you have devoted to answering my mail.’’

“I shall never forget your willingness to help and am deeply touched by your loyalty at such a sad time.’’

After the president’s death, Murphy remained active in politics for a while, angering Kennedy loyalists when she supported Eugene McCarthy, who announced his opposition to the Vietnam War before Robert Kennedy.

In recent years she drifted out of politics, preferring to focus on time with friends, grandchildren and the Framingham History Center.

But recently Murphy has become involved with a local residents opposing plans to build a treatment center on the former Marist Recent Center Campus.

“I guess the idealism and involvement with causes never goes away,” she said.

Chris Bergeron is a MetroWest (Mass.) Daily News staff writer. Contact him at cbergeron@wickedlocal.com or 508-626-4448.

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